words:

"My God, have pity on me!"

* * * * *

I who thought I must succeed in everything, see that I am failing
everywhere. I shall never console myself for it. How everything in
this world repeats itself! I went lately to the Aquaviva terrace and
looked to the right. It was in winter, and the mist was gathering on
the Promenade. I saw the Duc de H---- go into G----'s, and now it is
precisely the same thing, only then I ordered myself to love him,
and now I forbid myself to love.

Then I was crazy over the man; now he interests me because he looked
at me.

In a word, why and how? What do the reasons matter? I do not love
him. Oh, but I am so provoked! "Come," I said, "rouse yourself, I
won't cry about that."

To straighten myself, throw back my head, smile scornfully, then
indifferently, and that is all; moisten the ropes, as they did in
moving the obelisk of Sixtus Quintus, and I shall be on my
pedestal--and I have not an instant's strength. I preferred to stay
in my armchair and murmur:

"I fail in everything now."

Confess, you who will read these lines, am I a man? Confess that I